Rusting on the Vine
by Marching Madly Onward
Summary: The fruit is rusting on the vine. The fruit is calling from the tree.


**Rusting on the Vine**

"Ironic" is the word that comes screaming to mind.

Years ago, it was Neliel who brought a _Vasto Lorde_ before Lord Aizen to have a 2 burned into his flesh. Now, it is Ulquiorra who would bind her to Aizen by any means.

In the meantime, it is her hands that are bound. The shackles bite into her wrists, holding them in place above her head. Even if the chains didn't keep her spiritual powers in check, she doubts she would make an attempt to escape. Her visitor wouldn't allow it.

"Neliel Tu Oderschvank," the name rolls off of his tongue dispassionately.

She answers him with a glare. Of course they know each other's names. She discovered him in the wastes of Hueco Mundo, brought him before Aizen and ultimately allowed him to become something more than a monster slumbering beneath the sea of sands. It would not be an exaggeration to say that without her, Ulquiorra Schiffer, the Quarta Espada, would not exist. A sinewy, winged _Vasto Lorde_ would still haunt the deep places of Hueco Mundo, but he would not be _Espada_.

And that makes all the difference.

"I cannot promise you the rank of Tercera." He is all business, as usual. "But your former loyalty has not been forgotten. Lord Aizen is willing to overlook your impertinence."

_Impertinence?_

"Is that how he sees it?" Neliel can't bite back the bitterness in her voice. She has coined her life in the currency of responsibility. Her servitude to Aizen was her thanks to him for the _becoming_. Defending the humans from Nnoitra's churlish aggression was her thanks for Ichigo's kindness. The two needn't be mutually exclusive, although the Octava (now Quinta) and Privaron (now Octava) forced the issue with their ambush. When Aizen left her to the elements and failed to lift so much as a finger against her antagonists, the relationship was broken. She was here own woman again, free to pledge herself to whomever she pleased.

Ulquiorra doesn't have an answer for her question. It's not his place to presume his Lord's thoughts.

"Will you serve?"

"Woo me." She takes him in with unreadable eyes.

"You will likely take the place of the Sexta. The post was recently voided." Grimmjaw still lives, but his carelessness had finally worn away at the Lord's patience. He now holds the status of pariah-warrior. He is _Privaron _Espada. Neliel doesn't need to know this, so he says nothing on the matter. "However, that seat is not assured. Your number will be determined at a later date."

She resists the urge to let that news overpower her. Her power only counted for the sixth in line these days? What kind of monsters had Aizen dug up while she had been gone?

Instead, Neliel accosts him with levity. "I can't have my old job back?"

The humor of her retort is lost on Ulquiorra. "Your position has been filled in your absence."

"I'm sure you're excited about that." Ulquiorra hadn't been the type to feel excitement toward anything, so that much is still the same. It's a small comfort. "You have someone else to boss around."

"Issuing orders to the Tercera is no longer my prerogative."

Neliel feels the next piece of rebellious sass fizzle out on her lips. That could only mean one thing: Demotion. He isn't Tercera? How far had he fallen? Who had taken his place? A cold, clammy feeling wells up in her stomach and squelches along her extremities to drown her entire body in a turgid sensation. How many had they found to fill the gap between Ulquiorra and Stark? It finally hits her.

"It Barragan still the Primera?" Her eyes narrow in hopeful terror. Woe unto the world if Aizen had found a Hollow to surpass Barragan.

"That is irrelevant." And, really, it is but Neliel had hoped to find some stray piece of camaraderie skulking about the other Arrancar's soul, if only in brief flashes and sporadic spurts. Ulquiorra had never been the friendly type, but at least he had been possessed of a strong sense of propriety toward anyone he perceived as having had a hand in his own _becoming_. It was in that interest he had served Aizen, tolerated Nnoitra, and treated Neliel with something that could almost be mistaken for generosity.

Neliel chews the inside of her mouth for lack of anything else to do. Virtually any other form of agitation would certainly reach the twin abysses of green peering out of his skull. He's still an observant one, she can tell. He takes in the world without bias or resent, seeing all things exactly as they are.

Ulquiorra is not the type to grow impatient, but he is acutely aware of the fact that Aizen would like this process to go as quickly as possible.

"Are you still loyal to Aizen?" The words are dead and flat, like his eyes.

"Should I be?" She puts on a brave front, as if she doesn't know how hideously powerful he is. There is no reason to serve Aizen anymore, not after he allowed Nnoitra and Zaera to toss her aside like so much trash and rewarded them with rank. If Aizen has acted toward Ichigo and his friends as she suspects, there is even less reason. She only has cause to slit his throat.

Ulquiorra regards her with chips of emerald. She finally realizes how close he is. One strong, pale hand cups her cheek in a gesture she had not anticipated. Neliel chokes on a sigh in spite of herself.

She isn't sure how long they stare into each other's eyes. Ulquiorra is quite short, the intervening years having done nothing for his stature, but it only dimly registers in the back of her mind. In that intensely lifeless stare Neliel finds something to make the size count for nothing.

His breath, what little there is of it, tickles her lips, which part almost reflexively.

It all comes flooding back to her in a perfectly clear haze. He had treated her with more than generosity, more than something so mundane by a long shot. She took from him what few of the monster-men in Las Noches could offer her. And there were even fewer from which she would take such a thing.

But Ulquiorra had been a diamond in the rough—_her _diamond in the rough, most importantly of all. For all Nnoitra's kicking and screaming, he lay prostrate before the Hollow-king they disturbed in his sleep at Aizen's command. It was her measured words and steady voice that captured his interest and allowed the Second Sword (later, the Fourth) to be forged. (She was not like Nnoitra, to lift her sword against all comers, nor did she draw against something she couldn't hope to cut down.) So of course she laid claim to him, before Circucci or Sun-Sun or any of the others had a chance to do so.

If he hadn't been one of the Ten, she would have taken him as _Fracción _and likely chained him to her bedpost. There was a feeling beyond description that thrummed through her when she saw him beneath her, the slim but sure muscles in his stomach tightening, his severe eyes going half-lidded in an expression no one else could wring from him. To see something so stunningly powerful laying helpless at her command, living and dying with each moment as she explored his senses…it was a high beyond describing.

The sex was loveless. The sex was amazing.

In the present, Ulquiorra strokes her inner thigh. She hitches. He pinches.

"Are you still a masochist?"

Her moan is answer enough.

That is how he will bind her.


End file.
